Month: November 2010

Begging For Grown-ups

by digby

God, I hope people aren’t watching CNN on the week-ends because if they are, they’re seeing a pile of nonsense the likes of which I haven’t seen since the run-up to Iraq. They have been showing Pete Peterson’s creature David Walker on a loop spouting insanity like this:

If you count what we owe Social Security and Medicare we’re 92 percent of GDP already. We’re only three years away from where Greece was when they had their crisis. We have a problem. The fact the far right and the far left have a problem with the proposal is good news because the answer is in the sensible center.

And then there’s this:

VELSHI: Diane Swonk is the chief economist with Mesirow Financial. Diane we have a few issues here, we want to make sure that this commission doesn’t end up like the 9/11 commission where nobody does anything. But that danger really does exist. They were told do what you have to do to figure out an answer to this debt and deficit question. Did they overreach to the point, as John suggests, it might be dead on arrival?

DIANE SWONK, CHIEF ECONOMIST, MESIROW FINANCIAL: You know I think no matter what they did was going to be dead on arrival. I think John points out something really important, what the American people think they want and the reality of what that actually means for their lives are two different things. The gap in bridging that is very difficult. And in fact I agree with David I mean I still think the commission fell short in terms of what they could have done. They didn’t want to overkill and sort of go where they thought they really needed to go to deal with the real structural deficit out there. This really doesn’t have much on entitlements over the longer haul. [Right. Until they are completely destroyed, the job will remain undone.– ed]

But on the other side of it they were trying not to go so far that they wouldn’t get any negotiation. At the end of the day, the background research on this Pull and Pearson Research (ph) says we need have new budget accords; we need to have new rules that Congress has to act. That’s what is lacking in all this. We can have all the commissions in the world and point out the commissions to advise us but if we don’t have rules in which we have to get Congress to actually be disciplined to have a discussion, they are going to continue to act like children. I really am kind of ready to give the whole Congress a time-out at this point.

[…]

VELSHI: All right. John, the issue here is that we know that this is what people are concerned about. Someone is going to have to have an answer. Is this going to become the biggest issue of the presidential election?

KING: I think it will be for the next two years and into the next presidential election. David Walker is dead right the American people are ahead of their government and their politicians on this. Because Ali you know this, over the past two or three years every family in America has had to make incredibly difficult choices and do things they didn’t want to do. And so they look at Washington and they say why won’t you do things that you don’t want to do, why don’t you break your rules and do something about this and be grownups?

VELSHI: John, the bottom line is we’ve had sacred cows, things that were never going to be touched. But people in their own homes have had to deal with those sacred cows. So I guess it’s time that the government does, too.

KING: But the politicians don’t trust each other. They often don’t trust the very voters that just sent them here to Washington. The trust deficit between the Democrats and the Republicans is what gets in the way here. Because they think they will go into a room and cut a deal and then in the next campaign somebody will run an ad that says Ali Velshi just raised your taxes, he is going to make grandma work until she is 70, and he froze military pay for our heroes overseas. That is what they see; they see the short term politics of these attack ads. They won’t get in the room and make grown-up decisions. The American people look out and say we have to do this, why can’t you. It is the perfect environment for Perot like independent movement however the one thing the two parties agree on is making it hard for there to be a third party.

ROMANS: But it also makes it sound like we can all just sit here and watch Congress drive us into a ditch. It makes me feel very powerless sort of if so many people and the American people say they are so worried about this John but you can’t change the DNA of Washington.

VELSHI: Even after a midterm election like the one we just had.

KING: It is why the president tried to set this up so that you force Congress to have an up or down vote. Everybody has to do it together. Essentially you all walk the plank together. But if they can’t get the fourteen votes for this one report, there will be a couple of other proposals coming down the road just in a minute, that won’t happen, and when that doesn’t happen look, the new Republican House does not trust the president of the United States. And many Republicans think that their best effort is to carry this debate over into the next presidential election where they think they can win the White House and have a favorable political climate. Politically they might be right. But to the structural issues you are all talking about, everybody knows the sooner we deal with this, the easier it is, it is hard but the sooner the better, but this town does not seem capable of doing big things at the moment.

So the American people know what they want but they don’t know what they want and the congress can’t do anything because it doesn’t trust the president and wants the president defeated, but the smart people know that the deficit is the most important thing to deal with RIGHT NOW because well … I’m not sure. Do you feel better informed? I don’t. I have a headache.

The reason this reminds me of the run-up to Iraq is that it’s clear that all these issues have now become confused and the disaster capitalists have taken advantage of that to ram through their destructive agenda. There is acute crisis in unemployment and the continuing housing slump both of which are impacting the short term budget deficit. There are also some long term deficit problems, mostly to do with health care costs and endless wars. There’s also an investment deficit in infrastructure, education and research and development. We could help the first crisis by dealing with the investment deficit, but that’s off the table. So, we’re going to obsess about something that may or may not happen 50 years from now while making the current crisis and the investment deficit even worse.

The disaster capitalists are using the acute crisis to scare people into destroying the safety net and giving the wealthy huge permanent tax cuts and deregulating their businesses so they can pollute, poison and steal with (even more) impunity. The dim-witted Democratic deficit hawks (to the extent they are not disaster capitalists themselves) are helping them by running toward the shiny object in pursuit of their desperate desire to be taken seriously as “responsible adults” by Ali Velshi.

And then you have the villagers, who clearly do not have the vaguest idea of the truth of the economic situation and instead cast themselves in the role of Miss Manners, chastising both sides for behaving “childishly” and insist that we need a national call for “sacrifice.” They, of course, will not be sacrificing themselves because they are among the wealthy who will benefit from all this. But they believe they will be sacrificing because they see themselves as Jess-Folks-Real-Americans and assume that these “sacrifices” will affect people making 40k a year the same way it affects them. Which is to say they believe it won’t affect them at all. Except, of course, it’s hugely problematic for real middle and working class Americans to lose their personal and financial safety net if they are unlucky enough not to be on TV on Sunday mornings or have a few spare million in the bank.

The morning on This Week, Ruth Marcus gave a good example of the “above-it-all” well-off person who thinks that some combination of cuts to people who have nothing and cuts to people who have everything is somehow fair and equal, and worse — anyone who argues about such things is “childish:”

MARCUS: Actually, both sides are screaming bloody murder. And like most people screaming bloody murder, I think they’re behaving incredibly childishly…

AMANPOUR: Well, you’ve told the president to be professorial about this, didn’t you?

MARCUS: Professorial and the grown-up…

AMANPOUR: Written about it, anyway.

MARCUS: … and the grown-up in the room. I agree with what Senator Conrad said. The non-report, the recommendations from the co-chairs were a useful dose of shock therapy just to educate people about the incredible gulf that we have between the government that any reasonable person wants.

Marcus unbearably smug for someone who thinks solving these problems is just a matter of others being silly, when she’s nearly the silliest person in Washington. Not only is there a very serious, “grown-up” disagreement about the scope of the problem, there is a very serious disagreement about how to go about fixing it, what should come first and who should bear the largest burden. The right really, truly doesn’t believe that rich people should pay taxes and the left really truly worries about destroying a system that served us well for several generations, has no immediate financing problems and isn’t included in the deficit figures to begin with. (That last is true despite the lies spouting from David Walker who has become a rabid zealot and is now determined to get his way by any means necessary — not that Marcus would know that because he is one of the designated “grown-ups,” which should tell you something right off.)

This isn’t a childrens game despite the efforts of these idiotic Villagers who are determined to pretend that there is an easy answer to the huge ideological gulf between the left and right in this country. These aren’t two “extremes” of some mythical middle. They are the two competing American political belief systems, period. People who vote for Republicans know very well that they are voting for low taxes for everyone, including the wealthy, and they believe sincerely that everyone would be better off if they fended for themselves and let capitalism sort it all out. (How that plays out in their own lives is different,of course, but they are persuaded that most of their tax dollars are wasted on people who don’t deserve it and they aren’t going to change their minds.) Democrats believe that taxes are a price you pay for a secure, upwardly mobile society and that the wealthy can easily afford to pay more for the privilege of of living in a stable country with a strong middle class. Republicans are hostile to social security, medicare and all government programs designed to help the less fortunate. They simply do not believe it’s an appropriate or moral thing to do because it makes people dependent and lazy. Democrats believe in egalitarianism, social justice and social welfare. However hypocritical these people are as individuals (and they most certainly are) they vote on the basis of competing worldviews that are not reconcilable by a bunch of accountants hashing out a compromise. Those differences are real and they’re not “childish.”* These are very distinct ideas about what government should do and how it should do it. What’s childish is pretending that isn’t so and insisting on some kumbaaya magical thinking that we can work it all out if “the extremes” would just stop being so unreasonable.

It’s also relevant to point out that some of us who have been paying attention remember that just 20 years ago these same Chicken Littles declared unequivocally that we were on the road to Somalia if we didn’t deal with the “entitlements.” So the Democrats passed a budget plan to fix that (got kicked hard in the teeth by their opposition for being “grown-ups”) and left a huge surplus — which was promptly spent by these same Chicken Littles on wars and tax cuts after they stole the election.(Remember how the very grown-up Villagers giggled and snorted at Al Gore’s plan to put social security in a lockbox?)

Here we are again with more caterwauling about how the sky is falling if we don’t cut social security right this minute. The Villagers pretend not to notice and the political establishment shoots back and forth like pin balls every time these “grown-ups” start yelling. That’s especially true of the ridiculous Democrats who can’t make a decent argument if they tried, not even our allegedly gifted Communicator in Chief who seems to have sincerely bought into this nonsense. It literally doesn’t make sense and yet here it is, happening again. Only this time we have an acute economic crisis that’s being ignored so that they can play their Chicken Little game — and they’ve rigged it up nicely to make sure the wealthy don’t have to kick in at all while an entire generation loses piece after piece of their dreams and aspirations the longer this goes on.

Indeed, they seem to be going for the whole enchilada and intend to fully destroy the bond between the people and the social safety net — the worse things get, the more havoc they are going to wreak. But never let it be said that the Village grown-ups didn’t spring into action about the economy when it counted — they just decided that it made sense to worry about the health of it 50 years from now, while the whole damned thing collapsed around us in real time. That’s what they call “maturity” in the beltway.

It’s vital to call out the Village media for this ignorance. They are the enablers here by promoting nonsensical Conventional Wisdom without any current or historical context, based purely on the “common sense” notion that just because a bunch of Very Serious People (with axes to grind) are saying something. It’s brainwashing the people into believing that the economy is in trouble because greedy geezers are getting too much money and it just ain’t true. We’re down the rabbit hole. Again.

* I should point out that I’m talking about voters, not politicians, most of whom are bought and paid for lackeys of big corporations and wealthy interests regardless of party. But that’s a different problem, although not an unrelated one.

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Kafka On Wings

by digby

Just read this story of Orwellian airport hell and then think about how many of our basic notions of freedom we’ve given up in the name of “Homeland Security” in the past few years. Then think about the fact that we are spending billions of dollars in this so-called era of austerity on bullshit like this, with layer upon layer of supervisors and officers and supervisory officers basically performing security theater for no good reason.

These routine insults, humiliations and suspensions of human dignity are training us to submit to the police state. I noticed this morning that in all the blathering about tax cuts and deficits, not one person brought up Homeland Security. That bloated budget is going to get bigger and bigger and bigger and if you build it they will use it. And the results of that are obvious.

More here.

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Good News On The Taser Front

by digby

Some of these cases are starting to wind their way through the courts. Unfortunately, I have no confidence that the current Supreme Court will not totally affirm the police’s right to shoot American citizens full of electricity for any reason they deem appropriate, but I live in hope.

From Jonathan Turley’s blog:

Reversing a lower court grant of summary judgment, the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has allowed a Wisconsin couple’s “Death by Taser” suit to proceed to trial against the police and Town and Village of Mukwonago, Wisconsin. Their son, 29-year-old, Nickolos Cyrus, suffered from a bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, and was well-known to the police for prior delusional — but non-criminal — episodes. When the young man was reported missing, police located him on a construction site. His parents allege that Nickolos was passive, unarmed, and had no history of violence such that multiple taser shocks would be needed to subdue him. The police respond that multiple taserings were a reasonable use of force under the circumstances and that his death was unforeseen.

At issue in the summary judgment was just how many taserings were inflicted on the decedent. Overturning the trial court’s determination that no material factual dispute existed such that a jury could find excessive force, Judge Sykes wrote, “there are material facts in dispute about the extent to which Cyrus attempted to evade the officers and the actual amount of force Czarnecki used to bring about his arrest. The evidence conflicts, most importantly, on how many times Cyrus was Tasered. Czarnecki testified that he deployed his Taser five or six times, and the autopsy report describes marks on Cyrus’s back consistent with roughly six Taser shocks. But the Taser’s internal computer registered twelve trigger pulls, suggesting that more than six shocks may have been used. On a Fourth Amendment excessive-force claim, these are key factual disputes not susceptible of resolution on summary judgment.”

More here.

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Saturday Night At The Movies

Mad dogs and Englishmen

By Dennis Hartley

Love in the time of collaring: My Dog Tulip

In my 2009 review of The Wrestler, Mickey Rourke’s big “comeback” film, I wrote about how unexpectedly affected I was by the actor’s emotional acceptance speech at the Golden Globe awards, specifically when he paid homage to a dear and devoted friend:

…by the time Rourke proffered “Sometimes when you’re alone…all you got is your dog,” and then thanked all of his pooches (past and present) I was done for. I haven’t cried like that since the first time I saw Old Yeller .

What is it about the very thought of a wet nose, a pair of fluffy ears or a simple game of “fetch” that can make a grown man weep? Not only to weep; but at times to so sorely grieve-as the late British writer and literary magazine editor J.R. Ackerley once lamented:

“I would have immolated myself as a suttee when (my dog) Queenie died. For no human would I ever have done such a thing, but by my love for Queenie I would have been irresistibly compelled.”

Ackerley was in fact so smitten with this “Alsatian bitch” that he was inspired to write two books based on the 15-year long relationship he enjoyed with his beloved pet-a memoir called My Dog Tulip (1956) and a novel, We Think the World of You (1960). The latter book, a fictionalized, semi-autobiographical version of how Queenie came into his life, was adapted into a 1988 film featuring Alan Bates and Gary Oldman (an underrated gem that has yet to see the light of day on DVD; I lucked into a VHS copy when a local Hollywood Video liquidated its tape inventory). And now, the 1956 memoir has been adapted into a lovely new animated film directed by Paul and Sandra Fierlinger.

The Fierlingers utilize a simple, yet elegant style of animation that triggered memories of the soft and comforting pastel line drawings that adorned the Ludwig Bemelmans books I used to pore over as a child (yes, adorable Madeline was one of my earliest crushes). That being said, I must advise that in tone, My Dog Tulip is more Feiffer than Bemelmans. Nor can it be accused of being “adorable” in any way, shape or form (Marley and Me, this ain’t). Indeed, there is much ado about loose poops and “double anal glands”. There’s lots of estrus fixation and doggie sex. But the film also contains something you won’t find in most Hollywood fare, and that’s heart and soul. Again, sans the maudlin sentimentality; as the Ackerley quote which prefaces the film makes so abundantly clear:

“Unable to love each other, the English turn naturally to dogs”.

And so we are introduced the film’s protagonist, the author himself (wryly voiced by the ubiquitous Christopher Plummer), who describes himself as a middle-aged, “confirmed bachelor”. Every night, he leaps up from his desk at the BBC (where the real Ackerley edited the network’s literary magazine for several decades), rushes to the tube station, eager to get to his flat, throw open the door and tumble into a full body hug with Tulip, a rambunctious German Shepherd. If it wasn’t so obvious that one of these mammals had four legs and a tail, you could just as well assume that their body language conveyed that of two smitten lovers on a permanent honeymoon. Because you see, this is, at its heart, a love story. “Tulip offered me what I never found in my sexual life,” explains the narrator, “…constant, single-hearted, incorruptible, uncritical devotion, which is in the nature of dogs to offer.” (I think that pretty much sums up why we love the canines, n’est-ce pas?).

Flashbacks reveal that Ackerley initially “rescues” Tulip from some well-meaning but largely neglectful friends, when she is just over a year old. Being of an antsy and neurotic breed, she naturally developed some “behavioral issues” as the result of confinement to a tiny back yard with very little opportunity to run around, explore the bigger world outside the yard gate, and well, do as a dog does. Therefore, trying times lie ahead for both dog and new owner, including a long-running “feud” vying for Ackerley’s attention between his control-freak sister (wonderfully voiced by the late Lynn Redgrave) and the equally territorial Tulip. Then, when Tulip “comes of age”, there is the matter of how to deal with her need to breed. This episode takes up the middle third of the film; with the exasperated Ackerley displaying the patience of Job as he travels far and wide to find Tulip a suitable “husband”. This could prove to be the most trying segment for some viewers, who may or may not take offense at the idea of someone obsessing over his dog’s, erm, vulva and such (really, it’s not as weird as it sounds, taken in context with the tone of the narrative).

This is one of the more unique and intelligent films I’ve seen this year, set to a breezy jazz score by John Avarese. It is not so much a “man and his dog” tale, but rather a serious rumination on the nature of “love” itself-which as we know comes in all colors, sizes, shapes and guises. Is it a need-or is it a necessity? I suppose that’s a complex question. Then again, perhaps the answer is simple: Sometimes, “all you got is your dog”.

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Move Over Murrow

by digby

FOX News likes to make a big deal out of its allegedly non-partisan, straight arrow newsmen, particularly their “editor” Chris Wallace. In reality, he’s a hard core right winger, of course. Remember this?

“Fox News Sunday” anchorman Chris Wallace says father Mike Wallace has “lost it” – after the legendary CBS newsman told the Boston Globe last week that the fact George Bush had been elected president shows America is “[expletive]-up.”

“He’s lost it. The man has lost it. What can I say,” the younger Wallace lamented to WRKO Boston radio host Howie Carr on Friday.

“He’s 87-years old and things have set in,” the Fox anchor continued. “I mean, we’re going to have a competence hearing pretty soon.”

Wallace Jr. quickly dispelled any notion that he was joking. When Carr suggested that his comments were likely to be covered by NewsMax, he responded: “You know what? Fine. Go ahead. Call them. That’s fine. I’ll stand by that.”

Returning to the topic of his father’s competence, Wallace Jr. explained: “He’s checked out. I don’t understand it,” beyond the fact that Wallace Sr. has “problems with the war.”

[…]

Asked about DNC chair Howard Dean’s recent prediction that the U.S. would lose the war in Iraq, Wallace told Carr:

“We are in a war. We do have 150,000-plus American soldiers over there. I mean, it’s Tokyo Rose, for God sakes, going on radio saying we can’t win the war.”

Well it turns out that his threat to commit his famous father for having the wrong political opinions wasn’t the only creepy thing about him. He sounded off to a different talk show host today:

Today on his radio show, right-wing host Mike Gallagher spoke with Fox News’ Chris Wallace to promote this weekend’s edition of Fox News Sunday — however, the topic of discussion quickly veered off course. Gallagher told Wallace that he sometimes gets lonely and that he’s an “emotional guy” who sometimes cries “at the drop of a hat.” Wallace shot back, saying that he never cries. “I’m a man,” Wallace said.

Gallagher then wondered how Wallace’s wife puts up with him. “Maybe the secret is I know how to satisfy a woman. Has that ever occurred to you?” Wallace said. “What is wrong with you?” asked Gallagher. Later in the interview, Wallace then joked that in order to cure his loneliness, Gallagher should be “a man” and hire an escort or go to a strip club.

These seem like very odd things for someone in his position to say in public, particularly with his audience. I’m thinking the “competency” thing might better apply to the son, not the father. He’s a freak.

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Marching Orders From the Queen Of Real America

by digby

Her Majesty takes to the royal Facebook page and issues her edicts:

Welcome to all Republican Freshmen and congratulations!

Congratulations to all of you for your contribution to this historic election, and for the contributions I am certain you will make to our country in the next two years. Your victory was hard fought, and the success belongs entirely to you and the staff and volunteers who spent countless hours working for this chance to put government back on the side of the people. Now you will come to Washington to serve your nation and leave your mark on history by reining in government spending, preserving our freedoms at home, and restoring America’s leadership abroad. Some of you have asked for my thoughts on how best to proceed in the weeks and months ahead and how best to advance an agenda that can move our country forward. I have a simple answer: stick to the principles that propelled your campaigns. When you take your oath to support and defend our Constitution and to faithfully discharge the duties of your office, remember that present and future generations of “We the People” are counting on you to stand by that oath. Never forget the people who sent you to Washington. Never forget the trust they placed in you to do the right thing.

The task before you is daunting because so much damage has been done in the last two years, but I believe you have the chance to achieve great things.

Republicans campaigned on a promise to rein in out-of-control government spending and to repeal and replace the massive, burdensome, and unwanted health care law President Obama and the Democrat Congress passed earlier this year in defiance of the will of the majority of the American people. These are promises that you must keep. Obamacare is a job-killer, a regulatory nightmare, and an enormous unfunded mandate. The American people don’t want it and we can’t afford it. We ask, with all due respect, that you remember your job will be to work to replace this legislation with real reform that relies on free market principles and patient-centered policies. The first step is, of course, to defund Obamacare.

You’ve also got to be deadly serious about cutting the deficit. Despite what some would like us to believe, tax cuts didn’t get us into the mess we’re in. Government spending did. Tough decisions need to be made about reducing government spending. The longer we put them off, the worse it will get. We need to start by cutting non-essential spending. That includes stopping earmarks (because abuse of the earmark process created the “gateway-drug” that allowed backroom deals and bloated budgets), canceling all further spending on the failed Stimulus program, and rolling back non-discretionary spending to 2008 levels. You can do more, but this would be a good start.

In order to avert a fiscal disaster, we will also need to check the growth of spending on our entitlement programs. That will be a huge challenge, but it must be confronted head on. We must do it in a humane way that honors the government’s current commitments to our fellow Americans while also keeping faith with future generations. We cannot rob from our children and grandchildren’s tomorrow to pay for our unchecked spending today. Beyond that, we need to reform the way Congress conducts business in order to make it procedurally easier to cut spending than to increase it. We need to encourage zero-based budgeting practices in D.C. like the kind fiscally conservative mayors and governors utilize to balance their budgets and reduce unnecessary spending.

There in the insulated and isolated Beltway you will be far removed from the economic pain felt by so many Americans who are out of work. Please remember that if we want real job growth, we must create a stable investment climate by ending the tidal wave of overly burdensome regulations coming out of Washington. Businesses need certainty – and freedom that incentivizes competition – to grow and expand our workforce.

The last thing our small businesses need is tax hikes. It falls to the current Democrat-controlled Congress to decide on the future of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. If it does not permanently renew all of them, you should move quickly to do so in the new Congress. It would remove from households and businesses the threat of a possible $3.8 trillion tax hike hitting all Americans at the worst possible moment, with our economy struggling to recover from a deep recession! You must continue to remind Democrats that the people they are dismissing as “rich” are the small business owners who create up to 70% of all jobs in this country!

Another issue of vital importance is border security. Americans expect our leadership in Washington to act now to secure our borders. Don’t fall for the claims of those who suggest that we can’t secure our borders until we simultaneously deal with the illegal immigrants already here. Let’s deal with securing the border first. That alone is a huge challenge that has been ignored for far too long.

On foreign policy and national security, I urge you to stick to our principles: strong defense, free trade, nurturing allies, and steadfast opposition to America’s enemies. We are the most powerful country on earth and the world is better off because of it. Our president does not seem to understand this. If we withdraw from the world, the world will become a much more dangerous place. You must push President Obama to finish the job right in Iraq and get the job done in Afghanistan, otherwise we who are war-weary will forever question why America’s finest are sent overseas to make the ultimate sacrifice with no clear commitment to victory from those who send them. You should be prepared to stand with the President against Iran’s nuclear aspirations using whatever means necessary to ensure the mullahs in Tehran do not get their hands on nuclear weapons. And you can stand with the Iranian people who oppose the tyrannical rule of the clerics and concretely support their efforts to win their freedom – even if the President does not.

You need to say no to cutting the necessities in our defense budget when we are engaged in two wars and face so many threats – from Islamic extremists to a nuclear Iran to a rising China. As Ronald Reagan said, “We will always be prepared, so we may always be free.” You will also have the opportunity to push job-creating free trade agreements with allies like Colombia and South Korea. You can stand with allies like Israel, not criticize them. You can let the President know what you believe – Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, not a settlement. And for those of you joining the United States Senate, don’t listen to desperate politically-motivated arguments about the need for hasty consideration of the “New START” treaty. Insist on your right to patient and careful deliberation of New START to address very real concerns about verification, missile defense, and modernization of our nuclear infrastructure. No New START in the lame duck!

You can stand against misguided proposals to try dangerous, evil terrorists in the US; precipitously close the Guantanamo prison; and a return to the failed policies of the past in treating the war on terror as a law enforcement problem. Finally, you have a platform to express the support of the American people for all those around the world seeking their freedom that God has bestowed within all mankind’s being – from Burma and Egypt to Russia and Venezuela – because the spread of liberty increases our own security. You, freshmen lawmakers, can and will be powerful voices in support of foreign policies that protect our interests and promote our values! Thank you for being willing to fight for our values and our freedom!

In all this, you should extend a hand to President Obama and Democrats in Congress. After this election, they may finally be prepared to work with Republicans on some of these issues for the good of the country. And if not, we will all be looking forward to 2012.

Remember that some in the media will love you when you stray from the time-tested truths that built America into the most exceptional nation on earth. When the Left in the media pat you on the back, quickly reassess where you are and readjust, for the liberals’ praise is a warning bell you must heed. Trust me on that.

I and most Americans are so excited for you. Working together, we have every right to be optimistic about our future. We can be hopeful because real hope lies in the ingenuity, generosity, and boundless courage of the everyday Americans who make our country exceptional. These are the men and women who sent you to Washington. May your work and leadership honor their faith in you.

With sincere congratulations and a big Alaskan heart,

Sarah Palin

If this were a different country I’d assume she was forming a shadow government.

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Tea Drinking Anti-Choice Zealots

by digby

Katha Pollitt draws attention to the startling fact that at least 53 of the new House members and five new Senators are hardcore anti-choice zealots and makes the important observation that all this blather about the GOP keeping the abortion issue roiling for cynical political purposes is just that: blather. The anti-choice zealots will be hard at work whittling away a woman’s right to own her own body at the state level, while the GOP Congress will do its part to roll back whatever they can. And at some point, the movement is going to demand that their efforts to pack the court with wingnuts are rewarded with a reversal of Roe. They will get their case.

And contrary to popular myth the Tea Party is made up of hardcore social conservatives who as Ed Kilgore noted after the shock of the O’Donnell primary victory, are largely motivated by their opposition to abortion rights:

For all the endless and interminable talk about “constitutionalism” on the right, it’s rarely acknowledged that lurking in the background is wrath about Roe v. Wade. The same is true with the rage about health care reform; if you read a lot of right-wing blogs, as I do, you’d note that fear about Obamacare producing a massive expansion of publicly-funded abortion was a major motivator of right-wing opposition. House Minority Leader John Boehner knew his constituency when he made this statement just prior to the House vote on health reform:

A ‘yes’ vote for this government takeover of health care is a ‘yes’ vote for sending hard-earned tax dollars to pay for abortions.

More generally, the anger associated with the entire Tea Party movement is, I suspect, traceable among many activists to endless frustration of its desire to end the “genocide” of legalized abortion, to which the GOP “establishment” has given little more than lip service.

In case you doubt Kilgore’s analysis or Pollitt’s contention that abortion politics are about to rise up again, here’s the Arctic Tea Queen herself on the subject this week:

During a speech in Dallas on Wednesday night Sarah Palin attacked President Obama for being the “most pro-abortion president to occupy the White House” and warned that health care reform would lead to more abortions in America.

“It is even worse than what we had thought. The ramifications of this legislation are horrendous,” Palin said at an event hosted by Heroic Media, a faith-based, non-profit group that is working to bring down the rate of abortions in the Dallas area.

The 2008 vice presidential nominee urged the newly elected Congress to repeal health care reform, which she called the “mother of all unfunded mandates.”

“The biggest advance of the abortion industry in America has been the passage of Obamacare,” Palin said.

Although President Obama signed an executive order prohibiting the use of federal funds for abortions, the former Alaska governor said it was nonbinding. Palin also noted that the administration later allowed federal funding for some “high risk” insurance pools in states that allow elective abortions.

She is, of course, lying through her teeth. In fact, the opposite is true because the administration tightened the rules for the sickest women far beyond even the Stupak compromise in the face of the forced pregnancy lobby’s indecent mendacity. These cruel fetus worshipers actually want women who are battling terrible diseases to go through impossible hoops rather than have their sacred tax dollars touch dollars that paid for a necessary abortion. It’s sick.

(Meanwhile, check out what your tax dollars are touching these days. h/t to bb)

Pollitt gives a list of the likely anti-choice efforts from the GOP House:

§ Reinstate the global gag rule, lifted by President Obama on his first day in office, which bars recipients of US foreign aid from so much as mentioning abortion in their work, and make it permanent.

§ Pass the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, a k a Stupak on Steroids. This bill would make the Hyde Amendment permanent and reinterpret it to prevent any government department from funding any program that touches on abortion in any way, however notional. For example, if your insurance plan covered abortion, you could not get an income tax deduction for your premiums or co-pays—nor could your employer take deductions for an employer-based plan that included abortion care. (This would mean that employers would choose plans without abortion coverage, in order to get the tax advantage.) The bill would also make permanent current bans like the one on abortion coverage in insurance for federal workers.

§ Pass the Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act, which would ban federal funds for any organization that performs abortions or funds organizations that do so. The aim is to defund Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest network of clinics for family planning and women’s health, and in many regions the only provider within reach. This is the brainchild of Representative Mike Pence, who clearly doesn’t accept the conventional wisdom that taking away reproductive healthcare for women is unwise for a would-be presidential candidate.

§ Beef up so-called conscience protections for healthcare personnel and hospitals.

§ Ban Washington, DC, from using its own money to pay for abortions for poor women.

§ Revisit healthcare reform to tighten provisions barring coverage for abortion care.

§ Preserve the ban on abortions in military hospitals.

Note that the official theme here is not the banning of abortion but freeing the taxpayer from having to pay for it, however tenuous the connection.

One would like to believe that our nominally Democratic majority in the Senate will not advance any of this legislation and if they do our allegedly pro-choice president will veto it. But I fully expect that abortion will be on the able as a bargaining chip when the Democrats try to fashion compromises on economic matters — women will be asked to give once again so that the Teabaggers can be appeased with something that isn’t vitally important to the people. (Well, except the women, but they hardly qualify.)

The problem, of course, is that the anti-choice Tea Partiers will never be appeased, so nothing will be gained by it. But a lot could be lost Pollitt writes:

“This election was not about choice,” Planned Parenthood head Cecile Richards told me by phone. “The bottom line was jobs and the economy. But if you look at close races where the prochoice candidate won, and where women knew the difference between the candidates on reproductive rights, they voted prochoice and arguably made the difference.” As Richards points out, Michael Bennet, Richard Blumenthal and Patty Murray all won by double digits among women.

Richards thinks Democrats will realize they need prochoice women’s support to win.

They’d better.

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Looney Email of the Day

by digby

I thought maybe these rage-filled emails would slow down once the election was over, but I’m getting more of them than ever and they’re getting more incoherent:

JUST HOW MUCH LONG IS AMERICA GOING TO PUT UP WITH THIS ANTI-AMERICAN, BABY KILLING, SPENDS LIKE A DRUNKEN SAILOR, LYING, RACIST, MUSLIM COMMIE?

Subject: ‘BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA’ doesn’t exist!
Date: Friday, November 12, 2010, 12:18 PM

“… This is not about eligibility to be President. It is about fraud and racketeering.”

See videos of expert Dr. Ron Polland:

Barack Obama is an imposter with someone else’s identity. He has a fabricated biography, a fabricated birth certificate, fabricated college records, fabricated passport, fabricated Selective Service registration, and this is not about eligibility to be President. It is about fraud and racketeering.

The mainstream media knows he was not born here, but they don’t care. They know he submitted a phony birth certificate, but they don’t care. They know that $250 million in campaign contributions came from the Middle East, but they don’t care.

They know that he’s lying through his teeth, but they don’t care.

All they care about was being a part of “history “- the election of an African-American as President.

The email chain letter is a unique feature of right wing organizing that’s been around since emails was invented. I’m sure many of you have relatives who forward some of this stuff to you as well. This is where the really ugly stuff gets passed around.(See: Carl Paladino.) I don’t necessarily choose the worst ones, it’s random. They’re all hideously fascinating glimpses of the wingnut lizard brain.

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Worth Fighting For

by digby

This says it all:

This is where the right’s non-stop Randian propaganda really pays off. In a time of great economic stress for everyone but millionaires, you would think it would be a slam dunk to let the Bush tax cuts expire. But many Americans have been brainwashed into believing that it’s in their best interest for their bosses to get tax cuts because that means they might get a raise some day. (If they ask nicely.)

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The President In Focus

by digby

William Greider has published on of the most succinct and pointed critiques of the Obama presidency yet written and I think it’s right on the money in nearly every detail. I urge you to read the whole thing, so I won’t excerpt it. I will just warn those who agree with his prescription for liberals that they must be aware of the strong blow back they will face from a number of directions if they “call out the president’s enemies and attack them with the harshness that’s out of character for him” in particular what he describes as the “racial McCarthyism of the other side.” Take it from someone who knows.

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